Thursday, March 15, 2012

It isn't very often I allow things to get under my skin, and there isn't any opportunity where I am typically unable to articulate quite well about issues dealing with the beauty industry, but I have to admit this has got my mind reeling.

Things like over regulation, spreading myth, not actual science about harm of certain ingredients applied to the skin, or watchdog groups deliberately skewing facts and figures to try to strengthen their argument. I simply have always tried to show the science, explain the facts and provide in depth papers surrounding the article in links back to the abstract.

Now when it comes to me and my family's health, what goes in our bodies has always been more vital than what I actually put on it, but going as natural as I can is a priority and why I am and have always been about full ingredient disclosure, no matter what it is. In fact when it was mandated that food products must finally show their nutritional values of your daily intake, this was a huge step to eating things in moderation, but was not the silver bullet to better health. People were still responsible for making the healthier choices.

Absolute Disbelief

Well imagine my disbelief when the story broke about "Pink Slime" in ground beef. And that up to 25% ratio content of a package of ground beef sold in stores or in our children's hamburgers served at school, can contain this stuff. It is a filler that is treated with Ammonia to sanitize it.

On top of that, it has been primarily used in the 90 to 95% lean ground meat choice at the supermarkets, which when I have felt like a grilled burger on occasion, this has been the shopping choice for me.....I want to vomit!

Am I sure, that it has been in my ground beef in the past....NO, and in there lies the problem, but since I used to shop at Wal Mart foods, one can hazard a guess....ugh. But it is reported to be as high as 70% of the ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets and does not need to be disclosed as an ingredient. It is noted to have been most prevalent in fast food meats, something which I haven't eaten now for close to a decade, yet these chains are reportedly making sure it is no longer used in their meats.

But the fact remains it is something the USDA condones and either has purchased or is about to purchase another 7 million pounds of this stuff for the government subsidized lunch programs for our children.....but apparently kids will be allowed to opt out.....W-H-A-T? Opt out...wow, how about not offering this disgusting stuff at all, or if they are so sure it is nutritious and safe, then why even offer an "opt out" plan?

But It Is Safe
Is it?......USDA and the FDA have described it as "safe and nutritious" and there are those that will continue to state all this media hype is propaganda and that the media storm now hot all over the internet, is basically spreading misinformation. They further feel that it is pink and made from scrap meat, therefore it is meat. The beef industry even tries to disguise it as resembling ground beef as they have done in this pretty photo, whereas the other photo above is actually more accurate depicting its true paste like texture for being added to ground meat, something typically reserved for the family dog.

Of course, I fully understand all about media hype, since our beauty industry as been fraught with many similar scenarios. Yet my pet peeve, has always been about full ingredient disclosure, not perpetrate economic fraud, leading the public to believe they are buying a lean ground beef, with the remaining percentage to be suet....at least that is what my mother taught me and her mother before her.

The beef industry explains why it is safe and to debunk the myth of discarded scraps originally only used in dog food products, by stating "it isn't discarded scraps, but USDA inspected boneless beef trimmings"....okay, let's go with that for a moment....hmm....small problem, how do we know....

Since pink slime treated with ammonia (ammonium hydroxide) is somehow acceptable to feed to the public without knowing it is part of their hamburger or being fed to their children, how do we know it isn't the junk being scraped up after it hits the floor. I have seen slaughterhouses and how meat is processed and those trimmings do not stay on the table but fall into a vat or directly onto the floor.....hmm, kinda reminds me of the movie starring Charlton Heston, "Soylent Green." Now there's food for thought.

Furthermore, this is not the first time the USDA has turned a blind eye to meat packing plants or been in the back pocket of the meat industry, including the horrific treatment of the animals being pushed, pulled, lifted by bulldozers, trampled and living in filth, all under the watchful eye of USDA inspectors. They say the reason why they use ammonium hydroxide is to prevent E-coli and salmonella from spreading. Hey here's a clue, don't feed us diseased cows or those being rolled in muck. In fact, USDA inspected seal, in my opinion, means very little to me based on their criteria for things that pass inspection.

In fact the Animal Law coalition Reports, Governor Branstad of Iowa just signed into law H.F. 589. The bill creates the crime of "agricultural production facility fraud". "A person is guilty of this crime if, for example, he or she obtains a job at a factory farm or other "agricultural production facility" by making a false statement or representation with the intent to "commit an act not authorized by the owner".

"Anyone who obtains access to an agricultural production facility "by false pretenses" is also guilty of the crime."

"Those who conspire to commit the crime or aid and abet the commission of the crime would be held responsible as well."

And then we are suppose to trust our governments assurances that "what" we are buying at our local grocery store is safe and nutritious with their seal of approval?!

And you know what, it may be that ammonium hydroxide is not proven to be harmful and is even a naturally occurring substance, or that it is used in many processed foods or to sanitize our meats, and again, this is the crux of the matter. Eating foods that are chemically processed for consumption, ground lean beef, obviously now being one of them, is the reason we are seeing more disease, obesity and fetal malformations. It is our consumption and lifestyle choices that create these maladies along with many environmental factors.

No matter what, it is being drummed into our heads by many doctors today, that we should steer clear of stuff in a box, and reach for as whole or unprocessed food as possible. Can they have their own set of problems?... yes, depending on the local or foreign growers or the market where you shop, but here again, thinking about it so definitively, will make one go nuts. We simply must do the best we can with the information provided to us and decide for ourselves.

Wake Up Watchdog Groups - Get Off The Beauty Products Tack

This has been what I have argued about in many past articles and also why I get so angry. EWG and Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, may think what they are doing is noble, but they are so off track, this is actually what we all should be concerned about. What we INGEST!

Applying products topically does not and will not ever extrapolate to the conditions we are seeing by what we ingest. Pharmaceutical commercials are expounding the benefit of their pills for your health, followed up with a lengthy dissertation of the harmful side effects they may cause.

A little lead in lipstick has suddenly borne scrutiny and extreme media hype despite the fact lead is ubiquitous, yet there is no comparison to what we are eating without our knowledge, and I find this is more heinous. In fact, if CFSC and EWG have their way, our cosmetics will be more heavily regulated based on absolutely no evidence of harm, than the food industry.....and that is ludicrous. Where is the USDA and our government in regard to our safety in food matters?

Why are we eating and taking this stuff?

So when we really look at all of these separate industries as a whole, why is beauty being more heavily targeted than say, the food industry? As I have argued in the past, is it because food we need to survive and beauty is only skin deep?

Is it because to go after the food industry, would literally remove just about every processed food from the store shelf, even though certain legislation of ingredients could and would do the same to cosmetics and personal care products as well? The fallout in the food industry would spell economic disaster. But since some have determined cosmetics are unnecessary in our everyday lives based on their personal ideology, it is an industry that is easier to attack without merit or substantial unequivocal evidence. It is easier to create pseudo science to try and support their theories and fabricate harm...and quite frankly, this has become so disproportionate, I am sick of it, especially when I see far more unnerving issues surrounding our food industry....because what we eat, is what is killing us.

Just food for thought, I'll stand on the side of doing no harm, versus those that would deliberately conceal some mystery ingredient that I may or may not wish to ingest because it is just so appalling and then try to tell me that it is safe and nutritious....not on their best day.

And relying on our government to determine what is safe, nutritious and ethical is about who they owe favors to. The entire process is corrupt on all sides of government, it is not a partisan issue.

Showing Both Sides

Below are links to some articles that I located showing both sides of the coin. Is it acceptable to you to eat something the USDA deems safe, or should consumers be told what is in the food they eat, allowing the freedom to choose....why conceal it.....why the big mystery?

After all it is legally a separate processed food product, flash frozen and shipped in packets to stores to be added to the ground meat to give it the finished result....period.

Funny, the FDA mandates we must disclose all of our cosmetic ingredients that are used to create the finished product in descending order of ratios, not constituents of course, but finished. How is this any different? Why the two different standards? I would think something ingested would take precedent of having strict regulation over something we apply to our skin, yet the regulation of disclosure for cosmetics is stricter.

This is the problem, concealment of an ingredient that the government determines safe and forces it upon the unsuspecting public, while taking away with the other stroke of a pen, fully disclosed ingredients that beauty industry watchdog groups hate so they want them removed without any substantial facts of harm. I am sorry, but the hypocrisy is mind numbing. Why does the government on one hand get to conceal something they support and then to appease groups with an agenda, demand full disclosure and removal of the offending ingredient in something as benign as a skin cream?

Ingesting food, equals direct route to our blood supply, adrenal system and endocrine glands, which will correlate to much of our health issues today, not the dab of lipstick we apply to our lips.....but as always you decide.

What I particularly like about the last link, is the article addresses similar things like I have written, that just because something is naturally occurring in our environment, shouldn't and doesn't always make it the best choice or safe in our food products. Great analogy provided within.

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